


Gifted

by LadyLattice



Series: 'Noncompliance' Universe [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Family Fluff, Happy birthday Madara, Madara as a bitter middle aged man gives me life, OC, So Kise is 27 in this, Uchiha Kise, and Madara has already given him his eyes like I've implied in the past, implied HashiMada
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 01:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9050176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLattice/pseuds/LadyLattice
Summary: Kise has a little gift for his father on his fiftieth birthday.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's a day late because I've been so busy, but I wrote a little ficlet for Madara's birthday. Because of how old I am now and how my relationship with my parents has changed as a result, I wanted to write something for Madara and Kise, to show how their relationship has changed as well.
> 
> So here's this. And merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it!

It is warm for the time of year, with clear skies that allow the sun to filter unhindered through leafless trees and a crisp breeze that raises a light flush to Kise’s pale cheeks. His feet fall heavy on the boards of the porch, loud enough to draw attention as he rounds the corner, hoping to avoid startling his father – Madara rarely infuses chakra when he is lost in thought, and Kise has surprised him enough times to know he is not keen on doing so again. It has only been six months since the great Uchiha patriarch bestowed his Eternal Mangekyō and the clan head seat upon his adopted son, and Kise had accepted gracefully. He still feels the occasional pang of guilt whenever he uses his father’s – his uncle’s, he thinks bitterly – Sharingan, but he will allow no shame to dull his gratitude. Madara had restored his sight with his gift, and Kise knows that it is just one more reason to love the family he has been given.

            “Father,” he calls quietly, finding the elder man sitting on the porch with a cup of tea, poised strategically within the warm swathe carved by a long beam of sunlight. Kneeling, Kise takes the hand that Madara mindlessly offers, a soft smile arcing his lips.

“Let me guess,” the former patriarch begins as he turns his face blindly toward where the koi in the garden are circling in the frigid water, slowed by the cold. “You came to remind me that it is my birthday and that I’ve officially become an old man.”

Kise laughs, bright and cheery though his voice has long since mellowed with age and hard-won wisdom. “You’re not wrong. You’re fifty – that’s an impressive age for a shinobi. And you’ve been my father for the last twenty years,” he jabs with a good natured bump of his shoulder, “That’s impressive enough. I made your hair go grey.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Worse than dad’s.”

“Damn Hashirama,” Madara grumbles self-consciously, covering the silvery roots of his hair with his hand.

The pair falls into comfortable silence, passing the time in the quiet, knowing pleasure of each other’s company. They have been a strange, patchwork family for two long decades – two decades full of loss and love and good and bad, of all the challenges and victories that knit families together and pry them apart. It has never been easy, with Hashirama’s position as Hokage and Madara’s role as Konoha’s resident scapegoat, but Kise learned well from both of them what it means to have a spine of steel. Through everything they have stood tall, back to back and ready to take on the world to protect what is precious and what is right, even if it earns the ridicule of the gods. And Madara most of all.

Kise recalls well memories of his childhood, when he would walk through the village streets clutching tight to his adoptive father’s fingers as if the dark, brooding man beside him was the only thing tethering him to this world. Others would leer behind his back or cast away their gazes in apprehension, ever wary of the muzzled beast that is Uchiha Madara and pitying the boy at his hip. But Madara never flinched beneath their glares or the weight of foul words whispered bit too loudly, only his fist tightening around Kise’s small hand in silent retaliation – but as a child he thought the man frightful and powerful and amazing. Now that he has grown, Kise must admit that his was raised exceptionally well by two exceptional men, though his childhood was a bit unorthodox.

“Here, father,” he says after a long while, breaking the silence to press a carefully wrapped package into Madara’s hands. “I got you something. It’s not much, but perhaps you can enjoy it.”

The elder arches a wry brow – a mere smear of dark above the crisp linen of the bandages that cover the hollows of his eyes – and frowns in the direction of the voice beside him. “Hashirama will be angry. He wants me to open gifts after dinner…though I imagine his gift is just another variation of the same damn haori he has bought annually for the last twenty five years.”

Snorting, Kise shakes his head at his adoptive father’s dramatics and taps the object in his hands, which echoes with the peculiar hollowness of pages bound between a heavy linen cover. He wrings his hands nervously beneath Madara’s sightless scrutiny; because even without dark eyes to peel back the layers of your soul, the former patriarch can scowl an unwitting victim into the afterlife.

“Just open it,” he scolds as Madara feels out the knotted cloth with rugged fingers, finally untying the bindings and allowing them to flutter to the ground. “It’s a history of the Uchiha Clan, going all the way back to Ootsutsuki no Indra. Kagami helped me put the information together and I had a scribe in the village write and bind the thing. I thought it would be something nice and new for dad to read to you before bed. Father? What do you think?”

The elder’s silence lingers, filling the anxious void in Kise’s chest until Madara shifts, reaching, fumbling gracefully until his hand lands gently against his son’s cheek, tracing the long scar along his jaw with a calloused thumb. A smile cracks across the younger man’s lips, and he laughs sweetly as he cups his hand atop his Madara’s, savoring the strength and warmth and safety that this powerful hand represents. It is the same hand that reluctantly reached out to save his life, pulling him to the surface when he thought he would drown in his grief. It is the hand of Uchiha Madara, greatest patriarch of the noble clan, founder of Konohagakure, only rival of the Shinobi no Kami… and his father.

“You are a kind child,” Madara says after a while, patting Kise’s cheek.

“I’m not a child. I’m twenty seven for kami’s sake.”

“You are my child and I will call you a child as I see fit. Don’t argue, it’s unsightly.”

Kise rolls his eyes in good humor, grateful that his father’s chakra only flares in a fleeting, searing burst of irritation before mellowing into amusement, warm and flickering and content like a fire in a hearth. It is such a nostalgic sensation, so familiar and warm like the hand against his cheek, and his heart brims with such pleasant emotion that tears prick at the corner of his – of his father’s – eyes.

“Fine, fine,” he relents with a sigh, leaning to press a ginger kiss to Madara’s brow, lingering in the embrace. “Happy birthday, old man.”


End file.
